Voices seemed to converse backwards in the distance: voices familiar but somehow garbled, possibly even imaginary. One’s close friends, the rush of blood, the beating of the heart…. Sensation unpleasantly crushing every inch of one’s being until one’s own voice arises, a scream. A mother’s scream—of birth, and of birth in reverse.
Get up! Get up! Get up!
Raphael lunged forward, climbing to his feet against the strain of death. Spots formed before his eyes and needles stabbed his legs and his mind. He grabbed for the door post for support, but it fell backwards and he collapsed. Raphael! Raphael!
“Thenele,” he gasped. He turned about, found by instinct the rope tied around his waist, and followed it back under the blanket-padded wrought-iron bedframe. “Thenele,” he whispered. She did not respond, but he thought he could feel the faint rising and falling of her breasts. And falling…. He felt her arms, her legs, her head, her neck, her back…gently, very gently. Her legs—multiple fractures from the earlier fall. Her right arm—disjointed, pulled out of place. Wincing himself at the pain it would cause, he moved the joint back into place. As a reward, he heard that most precious hoped for…a weak groan, little more than a breath, on her lips. “Thenele,” he murmured, kissing her.
“Once more,” she breathed, as though from a dream.
“Thenele,” he whispered. He heard a scratching from above. “Don’t move,” he told her, then crawled back toward the sound. “Hey! Down here!” he called…but his voice was thin and weak.
Raphael forced himself to the ladder leading up to the loft of the shattered little cottage and tried his weight against it. He saw the timbers of the upper room beginning to crumble where the ladder rested against them. Groans wrung out of all the cottage walls and rafters. Above he heard a sound like knives digging through wood. He guessed that the bedframe would hold if everything came down on it, but he didn’t want them to have to dig their way out. He was about to shout out a warning to their would-be rescuers, but at that moment the timber cracked open, the structure crumbled in with a cloud of dust and held, precariously…and the drake flew down to alight on the upper rung of the ladder, its eyes glittering hunger and evil.
Raphael froze. His eyes met the drake’s in blank realization. The drake sized him up quickly but waited a little while to let the full measure of fear seep into its victim. Then lightly, like a feather, it wafted down toward him, landing on his hand outstretched on the ladder and sinking in its claws.
Raphael felt his hand torn apart but waited or hesitated a moment longer, then with a surge of adrenaline—what he had left of it—he wrapped the same hand around the drake’s neck and crushed it: snap!
Blood poured through his fingers. He pushed his hand into his cloak and staggered back to the bed. He tore a makeshift bandage from one of the sheets and wrapped himself. The drake’s body tumbled to the floor behind him. His eyes saw it not, but remained fixed on the beautiful woman lying beside him.
“Dying is not so bad in your arms,” Thenele spoke weakly.
“You must not die,” he answered. “You are the only strength I have left. You must promise me you will hold on.”
“What can be done with the heart alone, I will do for you,” she said.
“Then we shall not die,” he answered, “for all we have left is the power of the Father of all for the glory of His love, and no force can defeat that.”
“Good my love,” Thenele said, no louder than a rush of wind, “now kiss me one last time.”
“Hold on!”
“One…last….”
He kissed her. She was as light as a feather—could float away. Her breath hovered upon his lips for as long as he could hold on…and then it was gone.
Only his own body’s weight held down her lightness. Through his tears he spoke, “Thenele, do you remember…when we first made the Climb…together?” She did not answer, but he continued as was necessary. “You need not be afraid; take my hand; I will not let you fall. Here is the foot; and here is the gatehouse; and now we are on the lowest rung. Aerisia bright beckons you on; the lords of the three houses welcome you; I, Raphael, call unto you. Naught is behind to be considered: fly on. Fly on, my Silver, my Sweet. Fly on, Treasure of the diamond land. Fly on, my love.”
The second drake alighted on the wrecked Aerisian hut, enticed by the smell of fresh blood within. It hissed as a third drake came in to land. It warded it off with a slash of its claw, but the other drake only hopped into the air and made a circle to come down again. The former drake launched into it and they tangled in mid-air. Drake’s blood seeped from its jaws, and the other drake darted weakly away, fleeing, then suddenly jerking out of the air to crash in the rubble. The victorious drake glanced around suspiciously just in time to see an arrow speeding straight into its eye.
Raphael let go a stifled cry. The force of the arrow made him think for a moment that he had missed and the drake had taken flight…but its head and body landed in different places and rolled unlike a living drake’s. He followed, gingerly handling the bow with his mangled hand, and pulled the arrow out of the rubble where it had landed separately. He wiped it off and set it on the bow at ready, then picked up the body of the drake and hurled it away from the shrine of his beloved. That done, he lifted Thenele’s limp body onto his back and stood defiant.
A drake cried out somewhere above him. He looked up and squinted in the sun. Another drake answered from further behind. “Stay away!” he shouted. He drew the bow back its full reach against his torn hand. The diving drake swerved out of the way of the arrow, coming out of the sun long enough for Raphael to fire and pull it down. He pulled out his third arrow—the last left in Thenele’s sheath—and targeted the next drake.
When the Lady Anaerias’ troops appeared over the rise of the isle from the north, shooting down whatever drakes they found, they saw the man surrounded by drakes on the ground and in the sky, bearing the body of his beloved over one shoulder and wielding a dead drake’s corpse against his attackers as they came swarming in.
The Dragon Hunter’s Song
Into the snows of Tomeria cold
in the dark and the ice of the winter’s white eve
Alyxia followed the trail of the flames
of Ruthaea, Angiras, and Chriufer’s wake;
Long they followed reports of destruction and pain
and the wailing of widows and orphans bereft;
Now her homeland she sees shattered, broken and dark,
and Alyxia wept in her heart at the sight.
And Caleth, too, mourned as they trudged like ones doomed
through the graves dug so shallow of those whom of late
He had known once as brother and friend through his mate.
Those remaining now faltered before his mild gaze
E’en as Ladria’s aspens obsequious bend
to the breezes at evening returning to sea;
But yet, just as the cindering wind of a wildfire
expected and yet unexpected returns
Harder and crueler in ‘ts own exhalation,
just so also returned, as he gazed, the fell dragons:
First as a glimmer of colors above
the enshrouded embankments of flint-batted hills
Came sea-blue Ruthaea, the princess of dragons,
the air flowing robe-like i’ th’ curve of her wing;
Then came Chriufer scarlet and coral Angiras
atail her enflamed of the pherome of wrath,
Their sleek bodies asurge of her wake all aglow
with the visions of swift-flowing fires and bloodlust:
And so they descended: and those but afreshly
bereft of their husbands and children and wives
Now abandoned their streets in despair once again,
for the triple wrath of the dragons accursed.
Snow-bedecked fields coated red with the frenzy,
the late-fallen vivisect’ wastefully laid out cold,
Flowers ha
lf-grown, trimmed to ribbons and strewn
with a madness across the wide world like hot ash on th’ wind;
So in despair fled the town, closed the buds,
yet Alyxia stood, nor moved Caleth her spouse.
With their hearts all aglow and with arms held aloft,
with the dragons descending to front and to aft,
Fearful trembling is banished and willpower shown
to the furious princess of dragons, the great
Sea of despair, dark Ruthaea, whose eyes
were like diamonds hewn from a watery grave untold.
So then Ruthaea in circles around
her two prey, and the huntress with Caleth her groom and
All of the hopes of the races of men
and of elves by the dragons now scrutinized, scorned.
Weakly the sound of the hunters would seem
in the light of the triumvir’s steely-cold stare;
Foolish the youthfullest glow in their eyes
that would speak of a hope so intangible above:
Fire enkindling and death’s bite entraining,
clouds overpassing and all nature fleeing,
The dragon-kin steeled their enchained mortal souls
and descended upon the courageous two foes.
And then Caleth, the heir of the Caimbrian line,
came forth flashing at Chriufer’s scarlet descent
And Angiras, too, hurtled against his defense,
the two as but one for the heart of Ruthaea
And Caleth betwixt the two rivals, first this,
and then that, with his sword flashing hot with the flames
Of Chriufer round him, as coral Angiras
aglitter like pearls from the sea bed stolen,
Clattered with countless grim claws all around him,
he parrying desperately each as it came;
And still stayed Ruthaea, engaged eye to eye
with Alyxia, coldly debilitating stare against stare,
As if death was unveiled to mankind in its face—
but the huntress Alyxia was not disturbed:
Her hair glowing white like the moon on the snows,
her colorless eyes like two birds high above
The low spheres of mere mortal existence, of death
and of life, flying high in the realm of true love.
Then the dragon’s heart dimmed as Alyxia swept
like a blast of the winter’s first snows to the foot
Of the beast—and the woman and dragon engaged,
the young huntress against the impervious queen,
Climbing up over her treacherous scales
as she rolled and she slashed with her jagged-horned tail.
Quickly Alyxia found the right point
o'er the dragon-kin’s breastplate where the heart to the soul
Was enchained, and she thrust in her blade through the lapse
in the scales, and Ruthaea erupted in pain
And Alyxia fell to the ground with the stones.
Then Angiras and Chriufer flew to her aid,
With one movement o’erthrowing the son of Cabrynne
to the snow-covered rocks, where he lay as though dead.
Oh Caleth, the hope of Ristoria, fallen!
How fallen are you, the great heir of the mage,
The joy of your people, the star of the skies!
How fallen are you on the icy cold plain?
The dragons, now three, on Alyxia fell,
with Angiras and Chriufer tearing her down,
Weaponless, crushed by the fall of her love,
she yet stands to face them who against her still come,
And evading their claws she flies straight to her spouse
who then hands her his sword with the words, “You alone.”
And then Caleth, the son of Cabrynne, heir of Caimbrand,
was dead—but his soul will live on for all time
In the gleam of the leaves in Ristoria’s woods,
in the hearts of the hopeless who tread the cold plains,
In all souls who seek justice and salvific grace,
the repair of a world torn by powers malign.
She then, the huntress Alyxia, felt
the pure glow from the soul of her lover of late,
And with that sure grace she swung forward his sword
as the dragons came down from the left and the right.
The wing of Angiras the sword cleft in two
between her and the flames of foul Chriufer’s breath.
Onward still raged the two beasts as she leapt
between claws and red flames, between tails and sharp teeth,
And found she the point ‘neath Angiras’ scaled jaw
where the blade of her partner she sped to avenge:
And she pierced through the spot to produce a fell spray
of putrescent black ichor and brimstone that burned
Through her cloak and her clothes, that she plunged to the snow
as Angiras himself, spouting blackness and death,
Rose up in a pyre, uncontrolled on one wing,
weakly circling until to the ground he returned
With a crash so full mighty that stones and debris
were across the broad plain scattered wide like a rain
And the snow to the sky didst return like a cloud.
So fell the scourge of the nations, Angiras,
Wounded to death but not dying, the cursed
of beasts, the foul bane of elf nations and men,
To lie cold on the plain with his mind and his soul
from him severed by th’ stroke of the huntress’ sword.
Then in trepidity shook the dire queen
with the peril of death and the loss of her line
Interposed now by but one, the red dragon,
who charged thus full-force the Tomerian elf
With the power of two on his wings, in his claws:
a most fearfullest power, of hurricane force:
The claws like forged steel from the hottest of flames,
the long tail like a lash to break mountains in twain,
Armor as thick as the mists of Siroë
in the breaking of winter, when th’ sun becomes blind,
The fire a great forge as though earth to its core
had been rent and its heart ran forth bright for revenge;
And yet stood Alyxia—fearless she seemed—
as she drew forth her crossbow and sent forth one bolt
That flew faster than vision’s own speed; then she threw
down the horrible bow and went forth with the sword
That was still burning bright as a flame, which Angiras
had forged—thus so toward the fell beast she didst charge.
The dread bolt flying forth struck the dragon unseen,
and the eye of the beast in its socket was stirred.
Then Chriufer reared in the air and lashed out
with his tail, which Alyxia dodged with a leap.
To the dark of the blinded right eye she advanced,
and she wielded the burning hot blade of her love.
E’en as Caleth’s kind face reappeared to her mind
and the dragon descended and turned toward the maid,
She located the point o’er its heart and cried out,
and she hurled the bright sword by its blade to the spot—
Long seemed the moment, transformed from true time
and true nature, as th’ sword found its home
‘Neath the core of the monster; the wind sent a gust,
cloaked in magic; the earth beneath rumbled in aid
And the snow o’er the beast ran its pattering paws,
but the sun with its fire remained dark, overshadowed
As Chriufer toppled, the mighty and dread,
to the stones of the earth whence his scions had sprung.
Avenged now the fallen, the Therian lord
,
where he lay on his bed by the flickering candles;
Avenged now Carythia, fairest of fair,
the bright youth of the line of the wizards of old;
Avenged now the knights of the Therian plains
and the great elven questors whom Chriufer claimed—
Knights Raephen and Ciolla the bold,
and the brothers of fair Aris, Bernand and Liukar and Levarian who
Fought thee so bravely from the Arien gates,
whose great lives were a sacrifice made for their state;
Avenged now th’ Tomerian soldiers who fell
in defense of Callyse ‘neath the desperate siege,
Where marched forth the noble Encarman
in challenge to thee, and Markuman and Ehran as well,
Who held the last gate as the dragons advanced;
so now all of thy victims in city and field
Are brought peace at thy falling and rest in their places,
O thou scourge of the light, burning Chriufer Red.
Hope now was gone for Ruthaea, the queen of the dragons,
the sword in her heart as yet beating
But cold; and the glimmer ran out of her eyes as
Alyxia turned back to face her again:
The frail and yet powerful huntress now proved
by the bodies of Chriufer red and Angiras, two,
The suitors who once her election had sought,
laying now with the soul and the body in twain:
Spoiled their fine scales and their shimmering eyes,
the boiling hot flames and the thundering wind.
To the wind! To the wind! Gleaming queen of the sea!
To the wind take thou wing from the huntress: now flee!
O behold! Now she comes with the sword from thy Chriufer’s
heart, again cleansed in the snows of this ruinous plain—
Plain of horrors for thou, so soon fallen,
who so late the fair forests of Ristor enkindled and
Razed the wide herdlands of Therion black,
the while wasting many great heroes and knights of reknown.
So then Ruthaea rose up on her wings:
but Alyxia seeing, her grapples prepared
The Wizard's Heir Page 35
